Virginia Tech Graduates - Media's Moral Hazard

OK. I was hoping you would say yes. Because if you said no you got that from another media source I might have to point out the contradiction of complaining about media presence while also linking to or using their presence.

Here's my big picture look at the issue: We, as consumers/readers/viewers, etc.
want to know what is going on? The bigger the bloodbath, the bigger the curiousity. And unfortunately news organizations know well that connection - they know that the more they get in people's faces to get some juicy details the higher the ratings.
So I see logic in what they do despite how rude it is.

However that's not to say that they go way too far. As Killfile pointed out there's little to gain by asking a man that question I so hate 'how do you feel?"

So there are many, myself and Killfile included, who think the media are excessive and rude.

The problem becomes how do you tell reporters (those with fewer ethics and morals than others) why it's not ok to interview, say, the mother of a victim when she's still mourning when the showing of said interview will probably be teased and shown with huge ratings.

Personally my solution is to just avoid all tv news and stick to newspapers (who don't do as much in your face rude action because frankly they don't need to - they have mrre
time and patience) and Newsviners like Killfile.

Merry, that idea sounds great except the pictures from those attending the event would be respectful and probably taken from a distance. No student of the teacher who was questioned would go up and shove a camera in his face. That's the stuff the media pays the paparazzi for, and the paparazzi are inured to criticism. They have no shame because it's how they make their living, even if their 'golden goose' gets killed in a car crash in a tunnel in Paris.

Kathleen, that's about right. I was thinking, though, of not just the students but the whole commmunity of that school and region.
And not just the intrusive presence of the media at the graduation but ever since the shooting and probably for months or years into the future.

Can you see one reason why I left the journalism profession? Trying to do it "right" to balance out all the intrusive "bad" ones got old.

Would you disagree with what I said?
Keep in mind i'm of the type that even when on the floor crying from back spasms or in awful situations with my special needs work that I try to think of it all as some kind of a learning expereince.

Congratulations!

Graduation day should always be a day filled with triumph and joy---even in times of sorrow. I hope that yours was a celebration of all that you accomplished and all that you hope to do with your future.

Yes - congratulations! It's such a shame that your day of achievement should have been overshadowed by such a tragedy. But I hope you managed to celebrate nonetheless

Thanks guys. Despite the events that overshadowed my graduation, I can't help but feel lucky to be part of the class of 2007. My last memories of college will not be of a terrible tragedy, but rather of the amazing community, fierce loyalty, and intense school pride that that tragedy exposed to the world. Future classes will watch as those emotions fade over time, but for mine they will be forever fresh in our minds, as the last memories of our college careers.

Good point. And although I agree that journalists shouldn't be part of the story, I don't agree that they should be invisible. The faces I see in pictures aren't random people -- they have names and identities. The journalists should find that out, too. (Plus, whenever I've been pictured, I've always preferred knowing about it in advance instead of just opening up the newspaper and seeing my picture.)

I really don't think we're on opposite sides here. I just really get frustrated when the news media outlets that do a good job are lumped into the same category as broadcasters that infuriate me. Like scoop, that's why I rely so much more on newspapers than TV. Unfortunately, however, 90 percent of the American populace does the opposite.

Why do you think news agencies will make money off of this? Most TV outlets had to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to send and lodge reporters here. And most of them were broadcasting without interruption. No advertiser is going to sponsor coverage of a tragedy -- in fact the Roanoke Times said that a lot of advertisers pulled out on April 17.

If they make money, it's because it bumps up their circulation or viewership, and that holds until sweeps. And if that's the complaint, we should be chastising readers and viewers.

If they make money, it's because it bumps up their circulation or viewership, and that holds until sweeps. And if that's the complaint, we should be chastising readers and viewers

Personally I'm all for chastising viewers of the tabloidy shows who take this story to the nth degree because as long as people watch that crap they will show that crap.

Scott, you are so right. Every time there is a high-speed pursuit on a freeway in LA, viewership goes up. It is mind-bogglingly boring but as long as people want to watch, the broadcast will continue.

Too bad the journalism profession became so manic and you skipped it. It used to be honorable (one thinks of Edward R. Murrow, et al). Now it's as cut-throat as being a car salesperson. There's very little dignity left in the field, or at least that's how it looks to me.

Why do you think news agencies will make money off of this? Most TV outlets had to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to send and lodge reporters here. And most of them were broadcasting without interruption. No advertiser is going to sponsor coverage of a tragedy -- in fact the Roanoke Times said that a lot of advertisers pulled out on April 17.

If it didn't make them money they wouldn't be covering it. In the end it has a positive value expectation that heavily benefits the news provider weather it is realized at the time of broadcast or afterwards there is a profit in the exploitation.

If they make money, it's because it bumps up their circulation or viewership, and that holds until sweeps. And if that's the complaint, we should be chastising readers and viewers.

Does it really matter weather the money is realized during or shortly after the tragedy? I think not.

This is just a frustrating lack of understanding about how the news business works. Maybe Scott will disagree with me, but I have never, ever heard of a news organization going after a story because they think it will make money. (If anything I've only heard the opposite -- ignoring stories because they think it will hurt advertising relationships.)

Do you really think newspapers make money by sending reporters to Iraq? Or sending reporters to cover sporting events? Travel is amazingly expensive and almost always can be done by correspondents or wire services. Yet organizations still do it because they believe in the talents of their staff members and the desire for information from their readers.

Of course they want more readers -- but don't we all? Isn't that why we seed and Digg and reddit and everything else?

Finally, if they profit off of this -- and I sincerely doubt that ANY news organization will -- are we really suggesting that the news media should have to donate funds just for doing their jobs? NYT and Sept. 11? Times-Picayune and Katrina?

This is a question that is not as simple as

This is just a frustrating lack of understanding about how the news business works. Maybe Scott will disagree with me, but I have never, ever heard of a news organization going after a story because they think it will make money.

I don't think an ABC official says, "Oh, some guys fell down in a mine and they may have all died so let's go out there and cover it and we'll all get rich!"

Instead a news executive hears the news and knows its viewers expect to be able to watch coverage of it.
More people will tune in to coverage of what became a national tragedy.

So in that way no, they did not make more money because of that story or the Va Tech story?

But do you think they used the higher viewer ratings to raise ad rates? Probably.

Does that mean news executives hope bad things happen? Of course not.

But what is the alternative here? Not covering an issue that is news?

"The news business is a business AC. It exists to make money. That's what its for."

Conceded. But as Scott points out, what's the alternative? Entirely state-run media? Most news organizations try to put up a wall between news and advertising -- and as I said earlier, I more often see problems with NOT covering news than with covering it.

I agree wholeheartedly that stockholders will be the demise of good journalism. It's one of the reasons I subscribe to the foundation-owned St. Pete Times, despite living in Blacksburg. It's the only hope we have.

And I imagine the news side feels the same way about stockholders. Most of the time they are seeing cuts in coverage and staffing because of the need to throw some extra pennies toward each share.

I really hope you guys don't think I'm being a jerk on this. I do agree with a lot you're saying, but I just want to make sure you realize that the vast, vast majority of news reporters (at least on the print side) are good, hard-working people with the right motives.

Off-topic: How do I get that nice inline quote style to work in my comments?

Let me come at this from a personal perspective as a former reporter.
Quite often when there was a shooting, a murder, a campaign scandal, etc. I'd hear "Oh you're gonna make money off that person's tragedy, aren't you?
Not only was that hurtful but it was wrong.
It was hurtful because a)it made me feel like crap when I was just doing my job but before you tell me that's just the journalism equivilent of the Nazi war time defenses let me add that b) I had no personal investment in the case in that I would not gain nor profit from the story. I'd usually rather be covering a topic I really cared about like homelessness
or illiteracy.
It was wrong because our paychecks varied - at most - once a year.
Readers seemed to think reporters got a bonus if we sold more newspapers. If you use that logic does that mean we get cut if we cover stories people don't care about? By that logic I'd be owing readers money because my most common beats - local government - were the least read.

At some point I got used to just telling people "it's complicated" and resist the urge to tell
them they did not know what they were talking about.

Often it was hard enough to figure out how you were going to cover, as morally and empatheticallly as possible, a story requiring you to at least try to give a family a chance to say what their son who was killed in a fire was like without some calling me a vulture and others calling suggesting I wanted to get rich.

That would make me try even harder to be as understanding and unfailingly polite as possible - if they said no comment i didn't push it, for example.

I was hoping for your thoughts on this post, Killfile.

I know where you are at, cartooncat. My uncle died in the MetroLink accident in 2005. For days, my aunt had the media on her lawn, all over her neighborhood.

I don't know if a person ever heals from something like this, or if you just learn to live with it as best you can.